I decided on Tuesday to drop in to see Jonathan at the new "Bean There" roastery. I was beginning to wonder if they would ever find a place to house their Probat roaster, the wait if however finally over and it looks awesome. The place has a very industria, old school type feel and the HUGE roaster in the middle does not look out of place in it as all. No expense was spared with the espresso equipment either, a La Marzocco GB5 no less, so it seems that they have all the makings of an awesome coffee shop.

The shop is located just behind the Garden Court Holiday Inn and is well worth a visit. Jonathan has volunteered it as a venue for a jam session and I think that we may just take himup on the offer at some stage.

On behalf off all at the Barista Underground I would like to wish them all the best for the future and hope that they are going to bring us more awesome coffee's to sample as there roaster gets into full swing.

 JohnB

What an awesome night, I only got to sleep at 1 O'Clock in the morning thanks to all the coffee that I drank, it was all so good I just couldn't say no! 

Firstly the thank you's: 

A big thank you to Joe from IKhofi for providing us with some awesome coffee to use for the evening. Joe roasted three coffee's for us, all Moca-Java blends but in three different ratio's enabling us to gauge the balance between acidity and body in these coffee's and the effect that varying the ratio of Moca to Java has on the coffee's. 

Also a big thanks to the gents from Rancilio for providing us with a Rancilio Silvia machine and rocky grinder to test drive. They also slipped in an Epoca commercial machine which proved to be VERY capable.

 A big thanks to Malcolm and Lindy for the great organisation, the boerewors rolls were great and the venue was fantastic with loads of space for everyone to get involved.

Lastly, a big thank you to all 26 of you who attended . I am really getting the feeling that we are getting a coffee community going and it will be great to see how this develops in the future.

It was really great to see all the great espresso's being pulled by home baristas. The quality of the shots was awesome and a great  sign of the way that coffee standards are improving in SA. Also interesting was the amount of latte art being generated, it seems that people are really getting the hand of generating microfoam and how to pour it. Louis was definately generating the best latte art of the evening and I look forward to some great competitions in future :-)

There was also a whole load of information being exchanged and I noticed a lot of very serious (they seemed very serious anyway) conversations taking place. 

All in all I think it was a whole load of fun. I would like to encourage people to post any suggestions that you may have to improve the events in future to the link below in our forum.

C U at the next Jam 

JohnB 

Trevor and Neil decided to do a 24hr Barista Jam at  a Lan Gaming event and teach some of the guys what good coffee tastes like. Sounds  like they had a few converts!! They alsohad some time to put together a video of the event, so here is it!

Following on from the success of our last training session we have decided to schedule a "Jam Session" for Friday the 28th of March. The event will be taking place at Malcolm's work studio, no.340a Spur Rd , Beaulieu Beaulieu as it is an ideal location with plenty of power and space. The "Jam Session" is not so much a training session as a get together for quality coffee fanatics to share experience and knowledge and have a bit of fun. We also will also be a small Latte Art competion to see who can pour the best rosetta's :-) 

  Our idea is to hold these events mothly and to rotate through the local equipment suppliers and roasters so as to give everyone exposure. We are going to be limiting the coverage to one equipment supplier and one roaster at each event.

The local Rancilio distributors are bringing along a Silvia machine and Rocky grinder for us to test drive at this session. These are viewed upon as excellent beginners single boiler machines and ideal for someone wanting to be able to make quality coffee without breaking the bank! I have never layed my hands on one so am looking forward to the opportunity of spending a bit of time on one after hearing so much about them on the internet.

Joe from iKhofi will be supplying beans for this event and will also be available for a chat.

Milk and coffee will be supplied so please bring along your machines, grinders and extension cords so that you can practice, share some knowledge and perhaps even pick up some tips from fellow coffee geeks.

There will be a small charge for catering, cleaning up and milk. 

 We are going to start at 19:00 and will probably run until pretty late.

Malcolm is organsing a braai with some boerewors rolls and salad so please make sure that you rsvp on the forum thread so we can get an idea of quantities.  

What an awesome success, 28 people attended the event and I am sure all that attended will agree, it was a raging success. It was really great to see so many people enthusiastic about good coffee, knowledge levels varied from absolute beginners who were just interested in getting started to some very knowledgable people who just wanted to learn more. Everyone had one thing in commmon however, a love off coffee and the desire to learn more about making great coffee.

 A BIG thank you has to go out to Malcolm and Lindy for organising all the catering for the event as well as to Origin Coffee who handled all the booking and the training in the sessions.  David, Cuth & Jose are a great team and were exstatic to find enthusiastic people to share their knowledge with. 

Everybody bringing along their own home machines was a great idea and worked out very nicely. Our plan is to organise another evening session in April for people to bring along their home machines to o. It will probably involve less training and more "jamming" ,  we are however looking for your suggestions as to what you would like to cover so please make sure that you add your comments/suggestions to the article linked in the forum and we will do our best to accomodate. 

I have added some more pictures of the machines and people that attended the training  so please got to the follow on if you are interested